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As entrepreneurs, we felt your pain in 2012. It was a year of challenges, uncertainty, growth and miracles. The Sandy Hurricane, world tragedies, and, closer to home, several babies born within the Fishbowlfamily with serious and severe health concerns. Thankfully each of them are now doing great.

Celebrating a year of entrepreneurship - Fishbowl Company Meeting Dec., 2012, with special guests Chad Lewis of BYU Football Fame, and retired legendary BYU Coach LaVell Edwards

1 – I wish for continued high growth, and that market conditions will be conducive enough to small and growing businesses to keep our own business model growing and progressing as well.

2—I wish for the fastest and best possible growth for our company’s captains. These individuals are literally the co-owners of our company as we have enacted the stock ownership that resulted from our company buyback in May of 2010. I wish for the growth in these emerging leaders to make this opportunity all that it can possibly be.

3—I wish and hope for strength and success for our customers. We now include some 65,000 users in our circles at the close of 2012. I would love to anticipate we could participate with and influence as many as double that number by the conclusion of 2013.

However, at another level, knowing the ways that unknowns can affect our business (for example, a single occurrence such as Hurricane Sandy, on the other side of the U.S., if badly timed can fall directly into the buying cycle of our business) is the kind of challenge we need to be perpetually prepared to address.

I will openly admit that seeing my book listed for pre-order on Amazon – and then on Barnes and Noble—startled me all the way down to my shoes. (Don’t ask my daughter what I said when she pointed it out.) Admittedly, at least momentarily, the realization of that commitment and what it means, gave me an instant of “what have I done” panic and shock.

There are company members and family members facing severe and real health challenges. Tragedies and misfortunes happen. But there’s nothing that can happen that our ability to survive can’t surpass.

My biggest business fear, as always, lies within myself—the fear of letting down the people I care about most-–my family, our employees/co-owners, and our company’s partners—in any respect. I consider that fear a healthy challenge to do all within my power to be sure those outcomes do not come to pass, or in any instance that they do, a challenge to have the courage and strength to take immediate action.

We have adopted the Agile Extreme process throughout our company. While most people are busy in the last few days of the year creating New Year Resolutions, we pause for a moment and reflect on what we have learned. The dictionary defines retrospective as “an art exhibit showing an entire phase or representative examples of an artist's lifework.”

The “retrospective” is where our magic is discovered. Many of us in business are eager right now to set new goals. We have all mastered “efficiency". This year, President Mary Scott and I decided to try something new at Fishbowl. We are going to forego starting the New Year with goals and revenue projections. Instead, we will meet with each of the teams and spend time reflecting all we have learned together, and we will honor and celebrate their meaningful achievements, to begin the New Year on a positive note.